


the repuation of natasha romanoff

by ginger__snapped



Series: how natasha romanoff became a vodka aunt [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, SO, if you love natasha this whole series is gonna be about her, im having a lot of fun writing this!, it's literally just a character study on natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24323707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger__snapped/pseuds/ginger__snapped
Summary: an insight into natasha's life through the years, and her realization that she's still human.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark
Series: how natasha romanoff became a vodka aunt [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756036
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	the repuation of natasha romanoff

Natasha Romanoff had a reputation. She was a terrifying Russian spy with a deadly arsenal, a wobbly moral compass, and more secret identities than friends. She didn’t  _ do  _ family and friends -- she’d been on her own for years, and after meeting Barton, she figured that was all she needed. He was her best friend, and the first she’d had. He cared about her. She cared about him. It was something that she’d never had believed would happen. Because Natasha Romanoff did not trust people. But there she was, and the two of them held complete faith in the other. There was a sort of exhilaration that came with that, a shock at how effortless it was to work so seamlessly with someone else. 

For all her life, Natasha had been pitted against everyone. It was her against the world, and the world was a vicious place. She had a stance that everyone was out to get her, and she could manipulate and lie like the best of them, but none of it was the truth. Natasha could spin a carefully crafted web of lies, with identities and backgrounds stitched together in the perfect person. No one really knew who Natasha Romanoff was. Not even her. 

But Clint had seen something in her. He’d been sent to kill her, but he hadn’t. And at first, Natasha despised him for that. She could’ve gone on killing, sure, had SHIELD never interfered. But she’d been caught. She couldn’t go back to her life before. And there was a part of her that wished he’d just gone with his mission and killed her. Perhaps life could be more peaceful when she wasn’t in it. 

She’d called him a coward. To her, not properly carrying out a mission was as good as death. Years in the Red Room had instilled that in her. Clint had just laughed and tossed her a water bottle in response.

And as it turned out, not all organizations were like those of the KGB. There was no brainwashing, no stealing children’s innocence and forcing them to fit the mold of an ideal soldier. Just a group of people working towards the greater good. It was a jarring change, one she wasn’t quite sure was good for a very long time. 

Everyone at SHIELD had been wary of her. She didn’t blame them. She was suspicious about all of them. She stuck to herself, mostly, working with Clint and Fury. No one else wanted to get near her, and she was fine with that. If people were afraid of her, they were a lesser threat. 

But as time went on, SHIELD became less of a threat and more of a home. People warmed up to her, listened to her. They knew she was good, knew she knew what she was doing, and let her take charge. Maybe it was just because, in Fury’s eyes, she was one of their most valuable assets, but Natasha didn’t really care. 

That was one of the main differences between the KGB and SHIELD. To the KGB, she was just an asset. A soldier to be used and sent to do their dirty work. SHIELD was about protecting, where everyone was valuable and played a role in their plan. 

Then came the Avengers. SHIELD, despite being such a large organization, had always been her and Clint. He was the reason she was there, and the reason she stayed. But...the team was something entirely different. A close group of people, most of whom she completely did not trust. When you’re someone with a past of murder and betrayal and going undercover, trusting people isn’t something you do. It was nothing against them, really, it was just that she didn’t know them. 

Yet, somehow, they all got to her. She didn’t  _ tell  _ them that, of course, but perhaps she  _ did  _ fall asleep once or twice around them. And in her book, that was an extreme level of trust. 

She became what each of them needed. Because she was good at that. She could play the role of a friend, or maybe a confidant, slipping into a different skin so easily it should’ve worried her. But it didn’t, because that was what she’d been doing her whole life. Playing the part of someone else. Drawing bits and pieces from different identities, creating a new person to be. It was a sort of game, perhaps quite a terrible one, but one she played nevertheless. Steve needed a friend. Bruce needed someone to love. Everyone needed something, and Natasha knew how to be that. 

But then -- the fight. It drove them apart, scattered them, left them all broken and hurting and full of distrust. And Natasha told herself,  _ this is why you don’t trust people.  _

Because they always turn around and stab you in the back somehow. 

Even Clint did. After Thanos...nothing was the same. It was a jarring realization that maybe, just maybe, she had been too harsh. Too closed off. She had let herself slip up, forgot just how fleeting human existence really was. She knew so much, maybe too much, about all of the team. But only base facts. She knew about their pasts, from their parents to their medical history, but she didn’t know anything about who any of them really  _ were _ . And she had told herself she was fine with that. People who got close to her were in danger. If she got too close to people, she was setting herself up for a world of pain. But Thanos sent them all into hiding, licking their wounds and completely unsure of what to do. 

Five years of trying to lead the Avengers, trying to make up for all her mistakes, trying to be a good person, someone who cared, someone who was there, showed her that pain was a part of existence. It was unavoidable. She knew that already, of course, but this was a different type of pain. One that burrows its way into your chest, festering and growing, a constant ache and painful reminder of loss. And she finally recognized that the pain of knowing people was worth it, really. 

She hadn’t realized just how desperate she was for human affection and contact until it was ripped away from her. So she made a vow to herself to do everything in her power to be the best person she could become.

That started with Tony Stark. 

A man who had everything, yet was one of the most broken people Natasha had met. She’d been wary of him at first -- she’d read the news, she knew what kind of a person he was. As it turned out, she did not. There was a distinct difference between the way the press perceived Tony Stark and who he actually was. Natasha had an uncanny ability to read people, to see behind the masks and fronts and barriers people put up. Tony Stark was as cracked and ragged as a person could be. 

But, she couldn’t trust people. She liked Tony, sure, and she’d have even gone so far as to call him her friend, but they didn’t do emotions. None of the Avengers did. It was a hazard of the job, she supposed. Distrusting everyone to the point where you never let anything out. 

So Natasha tried her best to be there for people. She tried so hard to stop her own subconscious games and tests, to let herself learn to be more open. It was frighteningly hard, with her lifetime of playing the different parts of the game. And on top of that, everyone was shaken, shattered even, after Thanos. It was impossibly hard to talk about it. It was a sort of taboo subject, something they acknowledged but danced around in conversation, the emotions and fear electrically charging everything. 

But she was determined to become the best person she could be.

So, in the wake of irreversible destruction and pain, Natasha Romanoff tried to find herself.

**Author's Note:**

> hello and thank you for reading!!! i plan to write, like, snippets of natasha' life and have each work focus on a different time period so like. from the red room to endgame.  
> but this is part 1! more works will be coming to this series!!  
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! love you guys! 
> 
> my [tumblr!](https://ginger--snapped.tumblr.com/)


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